ASUG is pleased to share this guest perspective from Bob Bucy, IS Business Analyst, Business Solutions Supply Chain at bioMérieux, who serves as the ASUG Carolinas Chapter Chair and recently attended the ASUG Carolinas Chapter Meeting—June 2024.
Convening at the Charlotte Motor Speedway for a suitably fast-paced day of SAP learning and networking, the ASUG Carolinas Chapter recently dove into an array of timely topics relevant to the larger SAP ecosystem, from the rise of automation to the growing SAP skills gap.
The June 28 meeting, which drew a nearly capacity crowd, opened with a presentation from Mark LeClair, Chief Information Officer at Current Lighting and an ASUG Board Member. As SAP customers continue to face knowledge and skills gaps in what has become known as the year 20S/4, including around the implementation of SAP S/4HANA at their organizations, LeClair encouraged attendees to leverage ASUG resources, from webinars to content collections, to learn, connect, and grow their careers within the SAP user community.
With robotic process automation (RPA) still an important topic throughout the SAP technology landscape, Paul Lee and Kim Price, both of Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, joined Megan Boulter and Thomas Blackburn of The Silicon Partners to share how Charlotte Pipe has leveraged UiPath to automate previously time-consuming processes, increasing both accuracy and productivity. The presentation featured a demo of one of the automated processes, showcased Lee and Price's passion for RPA within their company, and drove extensive discussion among those in attendance.
In a second customer presentation, Michele Pyrtle, Business Process Director at Honeywell, and Gordon Folz, Vice President of Platform Integration and Digital Transformation at New Era Technology, walked attendees through Honeywell’s journey to build a global training system. SAP’s recent announcement of its intention to acquire WalkMe made this a very timely presentation, as Honeywell leveraged the solution extensively to create contextual help and guidance resources within SAP, as well as associated guides; this focus made WalkMe a core component of Honeywell’s Integrated Supply Chain Global Learning Excellence Center. The scale of this project in a company the size of Honeywell is truly astounding, and this was an excellent introduction to a tool that SAP customers will likely be hearing a lot more about in the near future.
For customers still planning their move from SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) to SAP S/4HANA, Kristen Scheffler, SAP Vice President of Customer Engagement, North America, hosted a session on the free tools already available to customers as part of their support package. The ASUG community is very familiar with Kristen and the SAP Customer Evolution team, which provides the ASUG community with vital SAP knowledge and support.
This meeting was heavily supported by the partner community, which brought a wide range of topics to the table for discussion. Jason Narinian, Account Executive at smartShift, shared how the software company is helping some of the largest global companies manage their custom code as they move from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA. Warren Norris, Managing Partner of the SAP and Mendix Practice at Titan Consulting, provided a terrific overview of capabilities within the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) Integration Suite. A Lemongrass representative was on site to discuss modernizing SAP landscapes with cloud automation. Abraham Kurien, Regional Sales Director at YASH Technologies, presented the RISE with SAP journey for YASH customer Ecobat, also exploring how Ecobat is leading the charge for a circular economy through its SAP Cloud ERP movement. Finally, Bill Oliver, Managing Director of SecurityBridge, wrapped up the day by discussing the steps customers can take to ensure the security of their SAP systems.
The ASUG Carolinas Chapter is well-known for its evening-before networking events, and there was a strong gathering at Twenty-Six Acres Brewing Company to kick off conversations that then continued throughout Friday within meeting rooms and at sponsor tables. The ASUG Carolinas Chapter is also well-known for its support of the SAP University Alliances and will return to an academic setting as it wraps up the 2024 meeting year on Oct. 11, on the campus of Fayetteville State University.
ASUG wishes to thank this event’s gold sponsors Lemongrass, New Era Technology, SecurityBridge, smartShift, The Silicon Partners, Titan Consulting, and Yash Technologies; silver sponsors Esker, Grom, Optima Consulting, Oxya, ShipERP, Syntax, and Worksoft, and bronze sponsor Neptune Software.
Bob Bucy, IS Business Analyst, Business Solutions Supply Chain at bioMérieux, currently serves as the ASUG Carolinas Chapter Chair.